The following link will go straight to the Jan 2009 issue (until they start posting the next issue, when one would have to use the past issues link near the top of the page) - where you will find a list of the articles, clickable to the full text. Illustrations are not included in the online versions, so be sure to get the printed issue. http://www.sciam.com/sciammag/

Complete articles are already posted and more may be coming (Please note - Scientific American Magazine will now be made available over the course of each month, instead of all at once. Check back regularly for more features and your favorite columns.)

LIST OF EVOLUTION ARTICLES (Comments added suggesting classroom/teacher uses)

A Theory for Everyman (page 32)
Evolution should be taught as a practical tool for understanding drug resistance and the price of fish.
The Editors

Darwin's Living Legacy (page 38)
A Victorian amateur undertook a lifetime pursuit of slow, meticulous observation and thought about the natural world, producing a theory 150 years ago that still drives the contemporary scientific agenda
By Gary Stix

Testing Natural Selection (page 44)
Biologists working with the most sophisticated genetic tools are demonstrating that natural selection plays a greater role in the evolution of genes than even most evolutionists had thought
By H. Allen Orr
[Excellent resource for updating. See further comments and excerpts below]

Diversity Revealed: From Atoms to Traits (page 52)
Charles Darwin saw that random variations in organisms provide fodder for evolution. Modern scientists are revealing how that diversity arises from changes to DNA and can add up to complex creatures or even cultures.
By David M. Kingsley
[Lots of new examples and illustrations of the different types of DNA changes and the origin of variation are well-illustrated ­ useful for updating your course content. The genetics of lactose intolerance may prompt you to consider adding the ENSI lesson by Therese Passerini: "When Milk Makes You Sick" at http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/tp.milk3.html]

The Human Pedigree: A Timeline of Hominid Evolution (page 60)
Some 180 years after unearthing the first human fossil, paleontologists have amassed a formidable record of our forebears
By Kate Wong
[Excellent up-to-date pictorial chronology of hominid evolution is presented, along with Darwin's declaration (in his 1871 The Descent of Man) that our closest living relatives are chimpanzees and gorillas, and his prediction that our earliest relatives turn up in Africa. Be sure to check out the several popular ENSI lesson on human evolution, - see them in the Evolution Index at http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/evol.fs.html - especially "Hominoid Cranial Comparisons," the "Chronology Lab," and the "Mystery of the Matching Marks."]

This Old Body: The Evolutionary Origins of Hiccups and Hernias (page 64)
How biological hand-me-downs inherited from fish and tadpoles evolved into human maladies
By Neil H. Shubin [discovered Tiktaalik "fish with hands" fossil in 2006; see review of Shubin's excellent and his most useful 2008 book Your Inner Fish at http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/rev.inner.fish.html ]

The Future of Man: What Will Become of Homo Sapiens? (page 68)
Contrary to popular belief, humans continue to evolve. Our bodies and brains are not the same as our ancestors' were-or as our descendants' will be
By Peter Ward
A summing up: "In short, humanity's future could take one of several routes, assuming we do not go extinct:
Stasis. We largely stay as we are now, with minor tweaks, mainly as races merge.
Speciation. A new human species evolves on either this planet or another.
Symbiosis with machines. Integration of machines and human brains produces a collective intelligence that may or may not retain the qualities we now recognize as human.
Quo vadis Homo futuris?"

Evolution of the Mind: Four Fallacies of Pop Evolutionary Psychology (page 74)
Some evolutionary psychologists have made widely popularized claims about how the human mind evolved, but other scholars argue that the grand claims lack solid evidence
By David J. Buller

Putting Evolution to Use in the Everyday World (page 82)
Understanding of evolution is fostering powerful technologies for health care, law enforcement, ecology, and all manner of optimization and design problems [also molecular clocks for tracking evolution].
By David P. Mindell
[These practical applications of evolution to diverse fields provides a powerful reason for studying evolution. Be sure to share these with your students]

The Science of Spore ­ The "Evolution" of Gaming (page 90)
A computer game illustrates the difference between building your own simulated creature and real-life natural selection
By Ed Regis
[Points out specific ways that the computer game "Spore" reflects evolution ­ and ways that it does not reflect evolution.]

The Latest Face of Creationism in the Classroom (page 92)
Creationists who want religious ideas taught as scientific fact in public schools continue to adapt to courtroom defeats by hiding their true aims under ever changing guises
By Glenn Branch and Eugenie C. Scott (NCSE)
[Update your knowledge of the common strategies used by those opposed to evolution so that your approach and content effectively defuses those inaccurate views.]
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EXCERPTS:
Testing Natural Selection (page 44)
Biologists working with the most sophisticated genetic tools are demonstrating that natural selection plays a greater role in the evolution of genes than even most evolutionists had thought
By H. Allen Orr
Excellent diagrams, examples and discussion that you can easily use to update your materials. Here are some key passages:
"The status of natural selection is now secure, reflecting decades of detailed empirical work. But the study of natural selection is by no means complete. Rather-partly because new experimental techniques have been developed and partly because the genetic mechanisms underlying natural selection are now the subject of meticulous empirical analysis-the study of natural selection is a more active area of biology than it was even two decades ago. Much of the recent experimental work on natural selection has focused on three goals: determining how common it is, identifying the precise genetic changes that give rise to the adaptations produced by natural selection, and assessing just how big a role natural selection plays in a key problem of evolutionary biology-the origin of new species."

Regarding the level where natural selection occurs ­ from genes to populations -- " most biologists agree that natural selection typically occurs at the level of individual organisms or genetic types. One reason is that the lifetimes of organisms are much shorter than the lifetimes of species. Thus, the natural selection of organisms typically overwhelms the natural selection of species."

Regarding the role of natural selection in speciation"most biologists now agree that natural selection is the key evolutionary force that drives not only evolutionary change within species but also the origin of new species. Although some laypeople continue to question the cogency or adequacy of natural selection, its status among evolutionary biologists in the past few decades has, perhaps ironically, only grown more secure."